Early morning in the empty temple court: long shadows across the paving, the temple porch and its two bronze pillars with lily capitals, a stone gateway with benches to one side, dew on the stones.

Shepherds and prophets

Jeremiah 26

Would you say the hard, true thing if it might cost you?

24 verses≈ 6 minBSB

Images are artistic interpretations.

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Where we are

1The callJosiah’s thirteenth year (about 627 BC): a prophet to the nations
2–6Return to MeBroken cisterns, faithless Judah, disaster from the north
7–10The temple gateThe temple sermon, a weeping prophet, the living God
11–20Covenant and complaintThe broken covenant, the potter, Jeremiah’s confessions
21–29Shepherds and prophetsKings judged, the Branch, seventy years, the yoke, the letterChapter 26
30–33The Book of ComfortRestoration, the new covenant, a field bought in a siege
34–39The last days of JudahThe scroll burned, the cistern, Jerusalem falls (586 BC)
40–45After the fallGedaliah at Mizpah, the flight to Egypt, a word for Baruch
46–51The nationsEgypt to Babylon: the LORD is Judge of all the earth
52Jerusalem fallsThe record of 586 BC, and a king released

A Warning to the Cities of Judah

At the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, this word came from the LORD:

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God

A feast morning in the temple court: crowds of worshipers from the towns with lambs and baskets, priests in white linen at the inner gate, and at the near edge the prophet, small and seen from behind, about to speak.

“This is what the LORD says: Stand in the courtyard of the house of the LORD and speak all the words I have commanded you to speak to all the cities of Judah who come to worship there. Do not omit a word.

God

Perhaps they will listen and turn—each from his evil way of life—so that I may relent of the disaster I am planning to bring upon them because of the evil of their deeds.

God

God

And you are to tell them that this is what the LORD says: ‘If you do not listen to Me and walk in My law, which I have set before you, and if you do not listen to the words of My servants the prophets, whom I have sent you again and again even though you did not listen, then I will make this house like Shiloh, and I will make this city an object of cursing among all the nations of the earth.’”

Stylised map · locations approximate

On the map

Shiloh

Shiloh, where the tabernacle stood in Eli’s day, lay about 20 miles north of Jerusalem, a ruin everyone knew. Jeremiah’s home, Anathoth, was about 3 miles north-east; Kiriath-jearim, home of another prophet in this chapter, about 8 miles west.

Jeremiah Threatened with Death

Priests and prophets

Priests and prophets

Now the priests and prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house of the LORD, and as soon as he had finished telling all the people everything the LORD had commanded him to say, the priests and prophets and all the people seized him, shouting, “You must surely die!

Priests and prophets

How dare you prophesy in the name of the LORD that this house will become like Shiloh and this city will be desolate and deserted!” And all the people assembled against Jeremiah in the house of the LORD.

When the officials of Judah heard these things, they went up from the king’s palace to the house of the LORD and sat there at the entrance of the New Gate.

Priests and prophets

Then the priests and prophets said to the officials and all the people, “This man is worthy of death, for he has prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your own ears!”

Jeremiah

But Jeremiah said to all the officials and all the people, “The LORD sent me to prophesy against this house and against this city all the words that you have heard.

Jeremiah

So now, correct your ways and deeds, and obey the voice of the LORD your God, so that He might relent of the disaster He has pronounced against you.

Jeremiah 26:13

Jeremiah

The prophet, seen from behind, stands alone on the court’s paving before the seated officials in the gate, his empty hands open at his sides, priests and the crowd watching on both sides.

As for me, here I am in your hands; do to me what you think is good and right. But know for certain that if you put me to death, you will bring innocent blood upon yourselves, upon this city, and upon its residents; for truly the LORD has sent me to speak all these words in your hearing.”

Question

Quick question

The priests and prophets made their case to the officials. Look back at 26:11.

What did the priests and prophets say Jeremiah deserved?

Jeremiah Spared from Death

Officials

Then the officials and all the people told the priests and prophets, “This man is not worthy of death, for he has spoken to us in the name of the LORD our God!”

Elders

A high ridge after a city's ruin: plowed furrows run across the slope among heaps of tumbled squared stones, and scrub oak and young trees grow over the summit; no one is there.

Some of the elders of the land stood up and said to the whole assembly of the people, “Micah the Moreshite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah and told all the people of Judah that this is what the LORD of Hosts says:

‘Zion will be plowed like a field,

Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble,

and the temple mount a wooded ridge.’

Elders

Did Hezekiah king of Judah or anyone else in Judah put him to death? Did Hezekiah not fear the LORD and seek His favor, and did not the LORD relent of the disaster He had pronounced against them? But we are about to bring great harm on ourselves!”

The Prophet Uriah

Now there was another man prophesying in the name of the LORD, Uriah son of Shemaiah from Kiriath-jearim. He prophesied against this city and against this land the same things that Jeremiah did.

King Jehoiakim and all his mighty men and officials heard his words, and the king sought to put him to death. But when Uriah found out about it, he fled in fear and went to Egypt.

Evening in the Kidron valley below Jerusalem’s wall: a field of plain low burial mounds and fieldstones among dry grass and a few olive trees, unmarked, no one there; the wall high above.

Then King Jehoiakim sent men to Egypt: Elnathan son of Achbor along with some other men. They brought Uriah out of Egypt and took him to King Jehoiakim, who had him put to the sword and his body thrown into the burial place of the common people.

0:15

Narrated by Bob Souer · BSB audio, public domain

In the court’s gateway a broad-shouldered royal official in dark-blue wool stands close beside the prophet, one hand on his shoulder, facing the crowd as it begins to break up and turn away.

Nevertheless, Ahikam son of Shaphan supported Jeremiah, so he was not handed over to the people to be put to death.

Pray

Lord, give me Jeremiah’s courage to speak every word You give, and Ahikam’s courage to stand beside those who do. Whether I am spared or not, let me be faithful. Amen.

The trial

Whiteboard

Jeremiah was spared and Uriah was not. Both told the truth; God kept His word and His servant as He chose.

You’ve experienced

Jeremiah 26

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A verse to carry with you

So now, correct your ways and deeds, and obey the voice of the LORD your God, so that He might relent of the disaster He has pronounced against you.

Jeremiah 26:13

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